“THIS IS NOT A DRILL. A RIFT IS FORMING NEARBY. I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL. A RIFT IS FORMING NEARBY. REPORT TO THE NEAREST SHELTER. ESTIMATED TIME TO RIFT BREAK: 7 MINUTES. ESTIMATED TIME TO ARRIVAL FOR COUNTER-RIFT FORCES: 32 MINUTES. ESTIMATED RIFT CLASS: C10.”

There was a moment of still silence before the message began to repeat, and chaos erupted in the class. The neighbouring class was even worse; I could hear that class through the walls. Mr Stokes tried to calm everyone down, with only moderate success. Giving up, he began the evacuation to our assigned shelter. Despite the frequent drills, most of the students had never been through a real rift break before, and I sure as hell hadn’t.

This day had just gone from bad to worse. As I worriedly glance around at the slowly calming class, I see the shocked and scared expression face on Robin. Shit. Correction: from bad to way fucking worse.

“Hey, it’ll be okay, Robin,” I comfort, “We’ll probably not even be in the shelter for a couple of minutes…”

“...ESTIMATED TIME TO ARRIVAL FOR COUNTER-RIFT FORCES: 32 MINUTES…” I hear as the speakers continue repeating their message. What? Aren’t they always saying there’s a less than 10 minute response time?

“We will be okay though,” I stutter out as I try to salvage my attempt at reassurance. I hear Robin quietly snicker at that; at least my ineptitude managed to get them back to reality. I try not to let my awkwardness worsen my anxiety as the class begins to evacuate in a not so calm and orderly manner.

Fortunately, the halls weren’t very crowded. Our floor only has two classes each with its own shelter; apparently, there used to be many more students in each school before the cataclysm, but now any dense concentrations of people like that are just targets for the fiends. As we rush to our shelter on the east side of the floor, I try to reassure myself that even if the supers show up after the fiends establish beachheads, we’ll be fine in the shelter for however many hours it takes to clean them out.

Then, the rush of students begins to slow. First, I wonder what’s happening, but then I see that the situation somehow managed to get even worse, much worse. Between the reinforced shelter doors, I see something that makes my stomach. Inside the shelter, the air shimmers and warps as space contorts and glowing motes of sickly crimson energy gather, swirling around the rift fissure that is starting to form. This doesn’t happen; it shouldn’t happen. Shelters are supposed to deter rifts from forming inside them to the point of this being ridiculously improbable.

“...ESTIMATED TIME TO RIFT BREAK: 5 MINUTES…”

“Fuck this.” It’s getting hard to breathe. I’m so scared. Everything seems to be losing focus. Why is this happening again? My fingers are trembling. This hasn’t happened before. I can barely blink away the sweat in my eyes. Why did I think this has happened before? My chest hurts. Why do I remember this? I can hear my heartbeat. My dream. I dreamt this. The world is spinning. I had a panic attack. No, I am having a panic attack! I can barely support myself on my cane. How did I dream this?

“We’ll head to the west shelter! Let’s go, hurry up!” Mr. Stokes calls out. I have to force myself to pay attention to his instructions. I must get to the other shelter.

I feel so nauseous. The class is now moving with a lot more urgency. As we rush through the hallway over the main hall, I look down and see more coalescing crimson shimmers from a fissure forming near the school’s foyer. The vertigo from looking down the two floors to the entranceway almost makes me collapse right there.

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Robin catches my shoulder as I stumble. “Are you okay?” they ask, obvious concern written on their face.

I nod as I don’t think I can speak. I feel awful as I’m acting like a fool in front of them.

As we round the final corner, we can see the closed doors of the west 3rd floor shelter. The other class must have made it inside already. A few seconds later, the doors start swinging open; they must have seen us coming on the cameras. A crowd of students and a few staff become visible inside. There’s almost no space left inside. Shelters are purposely not built very big to give fissures less space to open, fat lot of good that did us.

“...ESTIMATED TIME TO RIFT BREAK: 3 MINUTES…”

I’ve got to give the staff credit for how quickly they reacted to the predicament. All but one of them left the shelter to usher as many students as they could inside; unfortunately, that meant just eight.

After a hasty discussion between the staff members, Mr. Stokes speaks up, “We’re going to go down to the school office. That shelter is only holding a few office staff and should have space for the rest of us. Now get moving!”

We backtrack to the stairwell and my classmates begin rushing down the stairs. As I begin struggling down the stairs, shooting pain runs through my knee, and my dwindling panic begins to rise again. If I was thinking straight, I could have got priority for getting into the shelter. I see Robin glance back at me as they reach the first landing, and my heart twists as I realize they are seeing how useless I am.

“...ESTIMATED TIME TO RIFT BREAK: 1 MINUTES…”

I continue stumbling down the stairs. Robin and Mr Stokes are lagging behind as they keep track of me. My embarrassment just adds to my terror. I finally reach the bottom and step out of the door held open by Mr Stokes when a series of resounding cracks echo through the building, causing us all to flinch.

“Oh fuck,” someone helpfully comments.

Now, with a clear line of sight to the foyer, I see a gaping hole rent into reality and out of the void, an amalgam of spines, fangs, chitin, and flesh clambering out. That is way too many legs. The mottled grey and red skin of the fiend gives way to long bone-white spines covering most of its back. In spite of its centipede-like body, its head resembles a hunting dog, a sleek and long muzzle lined with finger-sized fangs.

The other stragglers and I begin running toward the office shelter. It is already open and many of the students have already reached it. I try my best to ignore the pain as my knee threatens to buckle under the strain. As I hurriedly look behind me, I see the fiend has seen us and begun to give chase.

“Voetsek duiwel,” I cry in terror, my glasses reflecting a violet flash. I don’t have time to pay attention to whatever that was so I continue to run.

Behind me, the fast rhythmic clicking of the fiend’s steps are interrupted as it fails to find its footing on the concrete floor and slips, crashing to the ground. It stumbles again, trying to stand back up only to slip again a few bounds later.

I feel a small well of power gathering on the edge of my mind, but I continue to run. I see a faint shadow pass over and through my shoulder in the corner of my eye, but I don’t pay it any mind. Then, with another flash of violet, I stumble. The well of power dissipates, and the grotesque creature flies over where I was just standing. It lands hard just in front of me, its many spindly legs slide to the side, and its body smacks against the floor with a dull thud. The well of power gathers again, but maybe smaller? As I run past the struggling fiend, I kick it with my left leg, my foot landing directly on what I assumed to be its head with a crunch and the refection of violet light. The well of power dissipates again as it whines and falters in its efforts to kill me.

I carry on, desperate to get to the shelter. I can hear more fiends stepping out of the fissure and running in my direction. I finally stumble across the threshold of the shelter, landing hard on the floor before the reinforced doors are slammed shut behind me.

I gasp for air on the ground as the pain catches up to me. The awful stabbing pain in my knee only pushes me further into my despair. The sheer exhaustion eventually forces me to calm down. As I start to become more aware, I can hear scratching and snarling from the other side of the door, and I can see Robin sitting next to me, knees hugged to their chest. Seeing them and knowing how they saw my utter helplessness threatens to send me into another nervous spiral, but I am too tired to even manage that.

Much later, muted popping sounds can be heard. “Gunshots,” one of the staff remarks. Over time, the shots gradually come closer, bringing with them other faint sounds of battle. I finally believe that maybe I won’t die. It’s almost over. My breathing evens out as I fall asleep.